Chapter Text
It all started with this.
“I had a dream of you.”
Said in a measured tone, soft and guarded, like smokescreen, coming through a mouth that Aomine had never really heard something so, dare he say, romantic, coming out of.
Only, it wasn’t romantic. Even if it was followed by, “of the two of us dancing. Somewhere in the open. Out on a hill, I guess. White lilies and everything. I was teaching you the steps. You were really bad at it.”
It sounded romantic as all hell, even to someone as crude and uncouth as Aomine, but it wasn’t romantic because Kagami said it wasn’t.
“What the fuck, man? Are you gay?”
“No, you stupid aho! It was just a dream I had!”
The images left a dent on his mind, like a physical blow to the skull. He pictured them with details that Kagami left out. The clear, blue sky over their heads. The smell of flowers in the air. The breeze brushing against their exposed skins. Them taking note of each other’s shivering in close proximity. The sound of Kagami’s laughter when Aomine tripped over his feet. How happy it made him feel, seeing Kagami happy.
“Then keep those damn dreams to yourself!”
It all started with that.
But it didn’t end there.
“I can’t.”
***
It’s stupid, Aomine thinks, the way he feels about Kagami.
It’s stupid not because Kagami is a 192 centimeters, 82 kilograms bulk of muscle and masculine power, reeking of sweat halfway through their one-on-one basketball games every Saturday.
It’s stupid not because Kagami looks the furthest from the pictures in Aomine’s collection of gravure magazines, with his fierce eyes and strong jawline, calloused fingers, bulging biceps and very noticeable lack of boobs.
It’s stupid not because Kagami is his rival and they go to different schools and only see each other on Saturdays because the redhead has a training regimen from hell and he can barely make it to their one-on-ones without passing out of exhaustion and dehydration and cramped muscles on the way to a street court that is too far from both of their houses, with cracked concrete and rusted hoops and terrible lighting when it gets dark (and it always does, time all but flying around them with Kagami’s every glorious jump), but they keep using it anyway because it’s abandoned and they can keep playing to their hearts’ content without anyone disturbing them ( “If it’s exclusive, then it’s a date, Aomine-kun.” “Shut up, Tetsu.” )
It’s stupid because Kagami doesn’t feel the same way.
“What the fuck does that even mean? Is this your stupid way of confessing your love or some shit?”
“It’s not like that! It doesn’t mean anything. I just had a dream and I wanted you to hear it.”
“You’re having dreams about me, Kagami. How’s that not gay?”
“I dream about a lot of stuff, aho. It has nothing to do with my sexuality, or you, for that matter.”
And he would have let go of his troublesome feelings a long time ago; he’s not one to ruminate about things that can never be, not anymore; not, quite ironically, after Kagami when all he always thought as impossible to obtain were thrust into his arms unceremoniously: a perfect basketball rival that could keep pace with him and sometimes, even run ahead of him; a reason to enjoy basketball again; a reason to smile more often; a reason to live and get better.
But Kagami is stupid, even more so than Aomine’s feelings for him, and he does it again, talks about forbidden things, soft things, terrible things, in that rough, guarded voice of his, tells Aomine things that he both wants and doesn’t want to hear, things that resonate deep within him and throw his feelings all over the place like some long overdue laundry, and Aomine keeps telling him to stop, (a guy can take this kind of torture for so long), but Kagami doesn’t want or doesn’t know how to, like a ball of rocks rolling downhill, can’t fight against the gravity, the inevitability, the sadistic irony, destroying everything in its wake without discrimination and care.
“I had a dream of you again.”
Like it means nothing to him. Like it’s a mere story that he heard somewhere, that he thought Aomine would find amusing, with no personal value to either of them.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
But Kagami, the oblivious, or inconsiderate bastard, doesn’t give a damn to what Aomine wants or doesn’t want to hear.
“You were at my place, pulling back the curtains and opening the windows in a frenzy, saying my house was too dim.”
Sometimes, Aomine is a hair's breadth away from wrapping his hands around Kagami’s thick neck and squeeze.
“Are you fucking deaf, Bakagami? I said I don’t want to fucking hear it!”
But the words kept pouring out of that beautiful but cruel mouth with such urgency as if the world would suddenly cease to exist if Kagami stopped talking.
(Aomine’s would, if Kagami didn’t.)
“I grabbed you by the shoulder and told you, hey Ahomine, stop! It’s all dark outside, can’t you see? And it’s fucking cold! We both looked outside the window. It was snowing. And you said, I’ve never seen snow before. So I grabbed your hand and said, let’s go play basketball in the snow —”
It’s not funny, how Aomine can imagine soft snowflakes lining up on Kagami’s crimson hair and melting with the barest of his touch; how the sharp tip of Kagami’s nose would flush red in the cold; Aomine can even hear his sniffling, and the rough feel of his hands - those big, long-fingered hands that have never touched anything more reverently than a basketball or that goddamn ring around his neck - almost frozen in Aomine’s much warmer hold.
Is it Kagami’s fault that Aomine has such a vivid imagination? Must be, because Aomine has never imagined, nor has he ever yearned to see, snowflakes catching on anyone else’s hair before.
“Kagami...what are you trying to pull?”
“I’m not trying to pull anything! Will you stop being a drama queen over this and just listen for fuck’s sake? Don’t you ever have dreams?”
He does. Not as frequently as Kagami does. But something of the same nature. Only, Aomine knows what they mean. He dreams of holding hands with Kagami in the snow; of kissing the tip of his flushed nose; of dragging his mouth along the graceful sinews in his neck; of burying his nose into those crimson locks and inhaling deeply; of knowing how kissing Kagami on the mouth feels like despite having never done it for real before.
Aomine is obsessed. Something at once more overwhelming than love and more underwhelming than affection. And every time Kagami tells him about a dream, it just gets worse.
The hope turns to confusion turns to anger turns to ash.
“What do you want from me, Kagami?”
“I just want you to listen, Aomine. That’s all I want.”
***
It’s been a whole month since he last saw or talked to Aomine.
There is no one-on-one on Saturdays. No Maji Burger afterward. No crashing at Kagami’s place, blaming the late hour or the rain, throwing sweaty clothes into the laundry hamper, getting competitive over silly video games and eating Kagami’s homemade food and beating him to the shower.
It’s fine, Kagami thinks, if that bastard Aomine is too busy with his new girlfriend to make any time for his number one basketball rival that he couldn’t go one day without challenging to a game. It’s his loss, anyway. Kagami has a long list of enthusiastic basketball players to choose from for his weekly one-on-ones. Kise is the most eager of the lot, and he can even imitate some of Aomine’s moves (they’re far from perfect, but Kagami appreciates the sentiment all the same). And when Kise can’t make it to their game because of a photoshoot or an upcoming exam or whatever, there is Midorima, who always brings along Takao without fail; or as Midorima would insist, he tags along without the green-eyed boy’s consent. And Kagami would then ask Kuroko to join them, too. And they’d keep playing two-on-twos until it’d be too late for any of them to be able to catch the last train home, and they’d crash at Kagami’s place which is the closest to the court, and Takao would help him with preparing dinner and Kuroko would set the table and Midorima would later help him with the dishes -- all the things that freeloader Aomine never bothered to do.
It’s fine if Aomine wishes to keep his distance from him and spend his time with someone he likes better. Kagami understands, and he respects Aomine’s decision and he’s not desperate for a worthy basketball rival the way Aomine is (for him).
It’s all fine until it isn’t.
Kagami has a dream of Aomine again.
And he has to tell Aomine about it as soon as possible. Only, Aomine has not been answering his calls or returned any of his messages, and Kagami could write about the dream in an email but he has no way of knowing if Aomine would read it (he probably won’t, that melodramatic asshole).
He wakes up with a throbbing pain at the back of his head from a stupid dream of him and Aomine surfing of all things, and decides to skip his first period today and takes the bus to Aomine’s school instead of his own. He ignores all the curious looks thrown his way and asks a boy in Touou’s basketball jersey (can’t remember his face, so not a regular yet) if he knows which class Aomine is. The boy is kind enough to offer to take him there (and gush about Kagami’s skills all the way there, making the redhead blush to the roots of his hair) but once there, Kagami is told by a classmate that Aomine hasn’t been to school for two days.
Well, shit.
He’s worried. Of course, he is. Aomine is a friend even if his attitude is rotten. And Kagami is not emotionally repressed like that blue-haired bastard to deny the bothersome feeling to himself.
That leaves him with no other option but to take a trip to Aomine’s house. At least, Honomi-san likes him well enough to let him in even if Aomine had most likely told her not to.
“Oh! Taiga-kun! Why aren’t you at school? Did something happen?”
Honomi-san is, Kagami imagines, how Aomine would’ve been like if he hadn’t been spoiled rotten and thought of himself as the best thing that ever happened to Earth since the invention of basketball. She has all that dark blue hair (longer and shinier; probably because she takes better care of it than that lazyass Aomine), the midnight blue eyes (with longer eyelashes, maybe), the dark skin tone and a small thin-lipped mouth; all so like Aomine and yet not, because her eyes are much softer, and the smile on her lips that she gives him so freely is kind and unguarded, and sure it would’ve been nice if Aomine behaved like a decent human being with manners and honest smiles, but that would no longer be the real Aomine. The one Kagami has grown to know and well, like, in a very exasperated, Aomine-you-fucking-bastard kind of way, so Kagami never pursues the idle musing past the thought that Aomine has quite, and at the same time hasn’t at all, taken after his mom.
“I hope not,” Kagami says as he hefts the strap of his school bag higher on his shoulder, painfully aware of the fact that he’s in his school uniform but nowhere near Seirin. Its a 30-minute bus ride plus a ten-minute walk from Seirin to Aomine’s place, and Kagami has already missed the first period.
Must have looked quite suspicious to drop in like this so early in the morning while wearing his school uniform, but Honomi-san, in yet another unAomine-like manner, looks at him with concerned eyes instead of suspicion (Have Aomine’s eyes ever looked soft with concern? Kagami can’t remember a single occasion where that was the case).
“Is Aomine home, Honomi-san?”
“Yes, he is, dear. But he’s come down with a terrible cold. He’s been all cooped up in his room since he came back from school two days ago.”
That idiot caught a cold? The idea sounds preposterous to Kagami. He didn’t know Aomine was capable of catching a cold. Besides basketball, there was pretty much nothing else the Touou ace could actually do, including getting sick.
“Oh. Uhh...can I see him?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Taiga-kun. You might catch the virus; his doctor said it’s very contagious.”
No. He has to see Aomine. That fucking bastard. How does he manage to piss Kagami off without even trying?
“Please, Honomi-san? It’s urgent. I really have to see him.” He feels desperate. He sounds desperate. And he’s pretty sure he looks desperate, too, if that pitying look on Honomi-san’s face is anything to go by.
“Well, you did come all the way down here to see him, so it must be something urgent. Just make it quick, alright? I don’t want you to catch Daiki’s cold, it’s really awful.”
Kagami grins widely at her, “Thank you so much, Honomi-san.” And gives her a quick hug and secretly revels in the affectionate pat he receives on his head before stepping inside the Aomines’ household.
He stops short at the foot of the staircase when he is suddenly struck by the realization that, while he has been invited to Aomine’s house on a few occasions (at Honomi-san’s insistence because she’s an angel and Aomine’s an ass), he has never been to Aomine’s room before; which is a very odd thing to realize now, considering how many times the Touou’s ace had been to his place, to the point where he walked around the house as if he owned the place and had practically taken over the guest room on Saturday nights when he slept over.
Understanding his predicament, Honomi-san calls out to him from the kitchen, “upstairs, second door to your left! It’s the one with the basketball poster on it, you can’t miss it!”
There is fond humor in her motherly voice which makes Kagami’s heart ache for all the two seconds before he catches himself in the wistful daydream and throws a grateful “thanks!” over his shoulder as he climbs the stairs two at a time.
The basketball poster turns out to be, much to Kagami’s utter lack of surprise, a Cleveland Cavaliers logo in all of its wine, gold and navy blue glory. It is no secret that Aomine favors the Cavs above all NBA teams; an annoying bias that has been the cause of too many pointless, heated arguments between the two of them, with Kagami advocating the Bulls, of course. They haven’t had an argument, pointless or otherwise, in far too long, and the thought startles Kagami with its burning, rueful gust of nostalgia.
Shoving the wistfulness aside, Kagami creaks open the door to a rather small, awfully cluttered room with stuffy air that smells like sinus infection and stale sweat. On the bed, Aomine is sprawled on his stomach, half-covered by a thick blanket, one of his nostrils plugged by a ball of tissue, an arm hanging off the side of the bed, breaths wheezing through a clogged nose. In short, Kagami has never seen Aomine look so pitiful, and something tugs at his heart at the vulnerable sight of his normally formidable rival.
“Aomine.” He calls his name in a loud, rough voice, but the boy doesn’t stir.
“Aomine, wake up.” He tries again, this time much closer to the source of viral infection, head bent down far enough for his lips to be almost touching Aomine’s ear.
A groan is all he gets for his trouble.
“Hey, Ahomine, wake up,” he shakes the other boy’s shoulder roughly, not caring anymore that he is practically breathing in Aomine’s germs.
Aomine finally cracks open an eye at the rough manhandling.
“Huh? Kagami?” He sounds funny, with the clogged nose and the inflamed throat. His usually clear eyes are glassy with sleep and sickness. “Is this some fever-induced nightmare?”
Kagami snorts. “No, dumbass, I’m really here.”
“Why? What the fuck are you doing here, Bakagami? Don’t you have school?” Aomine drags his body into a sitting position, directing a glare at him which is ruined by the flush on his cheeks and the tissue stuffed into one of his nostrils.
Aomine looks both disgusting and kinda adorable at the same time. Kagami resists the urge to laugh at the absurd sight. “I kept calling your phone, but you wouldn’t pick up. Then, I went to Touou but you weren’t there. So I decided to come here.”
Aomine groans and rubs at his temple as if to ward off a headache. “Why? What's going on? It’d better be about the apocalypse or I swear I’ll fucking kick your ass out.”
“Sorry to disappoint, aho. It’s nothing like that. I just had a dream about you again.”
“Kagami!” Aomine almost launches at him, like an angry panther about to tear into its prey with vicious claws, but he has to grip the headboard in his dizzy, feverish state to prevent a painful face-plant to the floor.
“I know you’re not particularly fond of these dreams, but please, just listen. It’s important.” Kagami begs, because he doesn’t really see himself above the act at this point. Aomine, for whatever assholish reason, is unwilling to listen, and Kagami feels quite desperate.
“For fuck’s sake, Kagami! I don’t want to listen to any of this dream crap of yours! Just leave me the fuck alone!”
There is enough genuine rancor in Aomine’s voice to make Kagami physically recoil from the almost palpable slap of it. Their friendship, or rivalry or whatever, has never been a stroll in the park; their personalities have too many jagged points to leave any of their encounters without cuts and bruises. But Kagami isn’t a stranger to bruises (he had received enough of them back in the States on street courts and dark back alleys) and has never flinched away from a punch because he knows when to dodge and when to face it head-on and take it like the pig-headed idiot he is. With Aomine there have mostly been punches that he took straight to the face because like hell was he going to turn down a challenge and this time is no different.
“Please, Aomine, it won’t take long! Let me just say it real quick and I’ll be out of your hair in no time. I’ll make you teriyaki burger in return.”
“You’re a real bastard, Kagami, you know that? Bribing me with food.”
“I’ll be quick,” he says again, hoping that his eyes, usually fierce and unyielding and resolved, look harmless enough for Aomine to lower his guards.
“What the fuck even is my life?” Aomine whines in that ridiculous nasal voice and gives Kagami the dirtiest look he could manage with those glassy eyes. “You won’t stop harassing me until you get your way, so, just spit it out and get the fuck out of here before I decide to throttle you.”
Kagami begins telling him about the dream with as little detail as possible. They are on a beach; a familiar one; one that Kagami used to frequent a lot back in LA. Both of them are in swim trunks and holding a surfboard under their arms. Aomine is grinning, bragging about a surfing competition. Kagami is grinning, too, telling him he has a long way before he could get anywhere near his level at surfing. Aomine tells him he has never been happier since he met him.
By the end of the recounting, Kagami is met with a pillow thrown hard at his face and a scream, “Get the fuck out of my face you fucking asshole! I don’t wanna see you ever again!”
Kagami ducks under the next assault - a gravure magazine that Aomine had grabbed from the bedside table - and manages to run out of the room and close the door before a basketball shoe could bash in his skull.
Aomine’s hatred of him burns under his skin, the awful words uttered with such clear sincerity, reverberating in his head with vengeful glee; but Kagami heaves a sigh of relief as he rests his head on the wooden door. He managed to tell Aomine about the dream and that’s what really matters anyway.
The next day, Kagami makes the teriyaki burgers he had promised but Aomine never comes. And Kagami is too sick to deliver them to his house or eat them himself. In a move that he knows he will regret later, he throws them all away. But for now, he doesn’t really care.
If only he could stop dreaming about Aomine.